Flags delayed: Gesture of reconciliation waits for reconstruction at city hall

Construction has begun on the city hall wading pool rehabilitation on July 23, 2018. But Edmontonians will have to wait until spring 2019 now to see the city raise the Metis and Treaty 6 flags there.Shaughn Butts / Postmedia

It was meant to be a grand gesture of reconciliation — Metis and Treaty 6 flags flying permanently beside Edmonton’s flag in its most prominent central square.

It’s still coming, say city officials, 16 months after a vote by city council to make it happen.

Edmonton will now raise the flags in spring 2019, following the first $13-million phase of construction around city hall. Construction crews cut down trees and started pulling up flagstones last week to prepare the site for the new wading pool/fountain.

There will be five flag poles when the square reopens in time for next summer’s festival season.

“It is going to happen,” said Coun. Aaron Paquette, who has Cree and Metis heritage. “Government is very slow moving. (But) when we say something is going to happen, no one is just speaking words.”

Edmonton currently flies the flags of Canada, Alberta and the City of Edmonton near the Peace Tower just south of city hall.

Council voted to add the Metis Nation and Treaty 6 flags in March 2017, saying that would recognize Edmonton’s particular legal and historical relationship with Indigenous peoples. At that point, city officials expected the flags to be up that spring.

Then they had trouble sourcing the flag poles. Now they’re planing to hold off so the flags aren’t installed only to be taken down for construction.

The whole project was almost postponed for another year. Earlier this month, city administration returned to council in private to say bids were coming in higher than expected.

But council was able to reallocate funds, increasing the budget to up to $13 million from $9.8 million.

Council was told the upswing in the economy affected prices. But Edmonton’s tight schedule also had an impact since the city is keen to reopen it before next summer.

Officials originally hoped to go to tender in February, start construction in April. But the plan to reduce water levels to ankle-deep in the wading pool surprised many on council and they took time to look at alternatives.

In the meantime, the Metis Nation and Treaty 6 flags are displayed inside city hall and in council chambers, said City of Edmonton spokeswoman Melissa Lovatt.

Paquette said the flags are important to remember Edmonton’s shared history and celebrate its deep roots, which was a recommendation by both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Royal Commission before that.

“This is a way of reminding us that we’re all together,” he said of the flags.

It’s not us versus them — no one is separated out into another group. Instead, this is acknowledging the shared past so we can build a common future together, he said.